Escape to Fun: A Usability Study of Virtual Escape Rooms for Neurodivergent Gamers

Escape rooms have become a pop culture phenomenon. An escape room is a game in which a group of people must work collaboratively to solve puzzles and complete objectives to escape from the current site of the adventure (Hall, 2021). Upon entering the puzzle, the game facilitator, or Game Master (GM), reveals the main objective to players; all the group’s subsequent actions contribute to achieving the initial objective, which must conclude within a certain amount of time. This paper aims at understanding if the virtual landscape can foster the same satisfactory gaming experience as one would have in a physical escape room. This project will study the usability of an online, virtual escape room. The game is designed using criteria needed for neurodivergent individuals to successfully participate. The goal is to keep the same cooperative elements as a physical escape room and see if that could translate into an online forum. Using the principle of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), where the computer supports collaboration, introducing an additional element of working over the computer in “real-time.” That is the link to making sure an online escape room remains as like a physical escape room as possible.